THE PRESIDENT’S CORNER
March has been a tremendously successful month for our association! I am writing this having just returned from Coastal Oaks. There, Beth Wilson, Thea Edmundson, and our new incoming bookkeeper, Charlene Nelson, and the Plant Sale committee headed by Cyndi Kuhn and Doree Osmun are wrapping up the tally for a very successful plant sale. In addition, the beautiful sandy loam soil procured for us by Richard Snyder has been shaped into a series of raised beds and will soon be ready to provide a home for the plants moved over from Green Acres. In the next few days, we will be moving the tool shed and potting tables and benches from the propagation area, and within the next 2 weeks will have a new structure in place to start propagating plants for the fall sale. We are definitely moving forward and have made a lot of progress in a very short time! This is due to the hard work, dedication, and vision of all the members who have worked so tirelessly over the last three months. I want to especially thank the members of the Landscape Committee, the Propagation Committee, and the Landscape Design team as well as the interns and newly “minted” Master Gardeners who have been such as inspiration to us all. I am also humbly grateful to the Board of Directors for tackling the many issues which have arisen with the move. You have responded with grace, intelligence, and professionalism and I am privileged to be in your midst. We still have work to do, but each day the vision of a beautiful, relaxing, enjoyable, and educational “Coastal Oaks Garden” gets closer to fruition. Thank you for all you do! Jeanna
Texas AgriLife Extension Open House April 18Texas AgriLife Extension will hold an Open House of the new Aransas County Extension office at 892 Airport Road, April 18, 4:30 – 6:30 p.m. A ribbon cutting ceremony by the Rockport-Fulton Chamber of Commerce will begin at 4:30; the public is invited to attend.
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New Articles for AprilApril 2012, Garden Checklist, by Kitty Angell April 2012, Live Oak Leaf Drop, by Virginia Easton Smith April 2012, White Marked Tussock Moths, by Todd Cutting April 2012, Rockport Is Blooming, by Ginger Easton Smith April 2012, Celebrating Earth Day, by Marthanne Mitchell April Articles From Our News ArchivesApril 2007, Palms That Aren’t Palms, by Lou Harris April 2008, Calendula, by Linda Collins April 2009, Propagation-by-Layering, by Vicki Coble April EVENTS
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APRIL GARDENING TOPICTodd Cutting Demystifies Lawn Establishment and Care The Texas AgriLife Extension Office receives many questions on turfgrass selection and installation. Usually these questions are asked after the turf, laid by the building contractor, has died or is doing poorly. Most building contractors scrape a site bare, locate and build the house, rake the site relatively smooth, install a watering system and lay St. Augustine sod. They set the water timer for 10 to 20 minutes every other day, turn the keys over to the realtor and go to the next site. The hapless buyer likes the granite counter tops, the three bedrooms, and the color of the living room and buys the house. The sprinklers turn on and off as programmed, the grass leaves stay green and everyone is happy. Everyone but the grass roots. They were asked to grow into a virtually sterile medium, sand of unknown pH, acidity or alkalinity. No nutrients! What were there were scraped off, leaving thoroughly leached sand. No micro-organisms to convert inert materials to plant available forms. No water! The programmed amount doesn’t do more than penetrate the sod and the soil, usually clay, that came with it. The water only wets the surface of the base soil. The new homeowner adds insult to injury by mowing every week and collecting the clippings with his new mower that cuts at an inch height, because that is how it was set at the factory. Must be right, factory set, and he paid extra for the model with the clipping collector and bagger. His wife complains because he and the kids track grass leaves on to her new living room carpet. Can’t have that! So the lawn doesn’t even get the benefit of the decaying grass clippings. Our homeowner knows he is having to buy groceries for the kids because they are growing, so he decides he should feed his new lawn. Ads on TV show a man spraying fertilizer from a bottle on the beautiful lawn, so he figures that is the easy way to fertilize. Once a week he puts a portion of soluble fertilizer in his jar, cheaper than a granular spreader, and not as heavy as bagged fertilizers and squirts away! It is foliarly absorbed so he doesn’t have to water very long and can get it done before game time on tv. Ever so gradually, his grass thins out. Eventually his neighbor asks what is wrong with his grass. He decides to water more so he changes the system to everyday. Suddenly circular dead patches appear. He doubles the amount of fertilizer. Weeds creep into the thinning turf. Applies a herbicide. What kind? The man at the garden store said, “use this.” So he did and throws the container away. Ginger Easton Smith addressed most of these situations in her article “Simplifying Lawn Care”, published in the Rockport Pilot, March 7th. But her suggestions are really for maintenance of the well-established lawn. To have an easily maintained attractive lawn over many years, the beginning has to be done right. For over 100 years, persons desiring to establish lawns have been advised to add organic matter to the base soil, whether it is clay, loan or sand. This is easily done here in Aransas County, where the soil is sandy and mulch is available from the County Transfer Station at $5.00 per yard or pick-up truck load. Before spreading the mulch take soil samples of the base material. You only need the regular analysis, which costs $10.00 and consists of pH, salt content (conductivity) and major elements N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Na, and S. Allow two weeks lead time. Once you have the results you can adjust the pH with lime or sulphur, and apply the recommended fertilizer amounts. Spread the recommended materials and till them in. Then add two to four inches of mulch and till it in. You will have to rake off some of the larger pieces of mulch. Rake smooth and water thoroughly. Make sure you have watered at least as deep as you have disturbed the soil. You will probably need to water several times to settle the soil to a firm surface. Apply a 1:1:1 ratio fertilizer at one-half the label rate for turf, water lightly and lay your sod. You now have a substrate that the sod will happily root into. If you are creating a lawn in Aransas/San Patricio counties you should specify “Floratam” St. Augustine if you want a St. Augustine lawn. Floratam has adequate cold hardiness for all but a 100 year cold winter for this area, plus is resistant to SAD (St. Augustine Decline) and most chinch bug populations. It is not as shade tolerant as other St. Augustine cultivars so don’t use it under trees. Raleigh has more shade and cold tolerance and is resistant to SAD but not to chinch bugs. Specify it for shaded areas. After the sod is properly laid, see SCS-2009-07 “How to Select and Install Sod, http://soilcrop.tamu.edu/publications.html, for instructions on how to do it right. Other publications of interest are: SCS-2009-05 “Turfgrass Selection for Texas” and SCS-2009-06 “Turfgrass Establishment in Texas”. Apply the remaining half of 1:1:1 fertilizer over the sod and water it in. For the first month you will need to water the new sod a couple of times a week until it has attached to the soil. Remember, each time you water you need to apply enough water to moisten the underlying modified soil. Make three monthly applications of nitrogen fertilizer (ammonium sulfate) at one pound of Nitrogen per 1,000 square feet. This equals five pounds of product. If a late Fall sodding, wait and apply Nitrogen when grass starts to grow in Spring after second mowing. If you do these things at establishment, you won’t have much to do but proper watering, seldom and deep, and proper mowing, maintain at 3 inches, cut when 4.5 inches tall max. Fertilize in Spring after second mowing and in Mid-Fall. |
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Aransas/San Patricio Master Gardeners are volunteers who work with the Texas AgriLife Extension Service to improve gardening skills throughout the community. We share our gardening knowledge through community service and outreach, gardener training and educational programs.Our Mission: Improving the lives of people, businesses, and communities across Texas and beyond through high-quality, relevant education.
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